


nice girls, knowing eyes

by wombatpop



Series: LUCY PEVENSIE IS A LESBIAN [2]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies)
Genre: Crushes, F/F, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gay Bar, Happy, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23699101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wombatpop/pseuds/wombatpop
Summary: The jolly woman at the grocery store has a daughter, which makes grocery trips fraught with comfort and fear. She’s pretty. Too pretty. And it’s terribly difficult to pretend not to be distracted when she’s appearing without notice, giving Lucy this smile that Lucy has no idea how to respond to.
Relationships: Lucy Pevensie/Original Female Character(s)
Series: LUCY PEVENSIE IS A LESBIAN [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706770
Kudos: 14





	nice girls, knowing eyes

**Author's Note:**

> i have a couple of playlists that fit this fic, one of which i made for the prequel to this one, [deliverance](https://wombat-pop.tumblr.com/post/175139355845/deliverance-a-lucy-pevensie-playlist), and the other i made for [a different vintage gays fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11694357), [stolen kisses and broken hearts](https://wombat-pop.tumblr.com/post/164438293520/stolen-kisses-and-broken-hearts-a-playlist)
> 
> also, as u may know, ao3 is not showing hit counts for non-logged in users atm, so if u like this story let me know by smashing that kudos button lol

Leaving Narnia always left her with such a deep sense of melancholy. 

The first time, her and her siblings weren’t prepared, didn’t know what lay before them. They’d lived a lifetime before they were thrown back into the war they had once forgotten.

The second time, they were ready to leave. But Lucy always feels as though she’s left a part of herself behind.

In the years before the Green Mist she was so taut, twisting closer and closer inward until she was rubbing painfully against herself. That third and final trip to Narnia changed her for the better, unwound that tension she had bound herself into. And now she feels excited to face the world again.

-

It was always Lucy who fetched the groceries. Her aunt was a busy woman, and didn’t trust men to collect their rations - they don’t cook, and therefore cannot bring home ingredients without female help. While Lucy may resent her aunt’s categorising, she must admit that none of the men in her current household - Eustace, Edmund or her Uncle - could do so.

Most often, it’s Edmund she convinces to accompany her. While Eustace prefers to spend his afternoons in books, Edmund gets restless, and enjoys the excuse to go for a walk.

On this particular afternoon, Edmund waits for her outside, as he often does. Lucy shoots a glance to the window of the store every couple of minutes to check he hasn’t run off to volunteer.

The jolly woman behind the counter, Mrs Miller, wears a short apron, stained in patches by dirt.

“No turnips again today, I’m afraid, but will carrots do, sweetie?” Mrs Miller always calls her a nice girl, always pays her compliments. She speaks with this familiar, affectionate tone. It makes Lucy miss her mother.

“Of course.” 

Mrs Miller also has a daughter, which makes these grocery trips fraught with comfort and fear. She’s pretty. Too pretty. And it’s terribly difficult to pretend not to be distracted when she’s appearing without notice, giving Lucy this smile that Lucy has no idea how to respond to.

“You know Margeret?” Mrs Miller greets her daughter with a warm smile as she enters from the back of the store, a box of unknown vegetable contents tucked under one arm.

“Of course.” Lucy sounds oddly confident, tone always coming out a little wrong when Margeret is in the room. She feels robotic, limbs going numb with her attention so pinpoint-focused on one subject.

Mrs Miller goes about pulling together Lucy’s rations, but Lucy isn’t listening. Margaret is re-tying her headband, running her fingers through her dirty-blonde hair, only chin length.

“...What do you think?” Lucy zones back into Mrs Miller’s expectant face.

“I beg your pardon?”

“About giving Maggie a hand with the deliveries? I know it’s a lot to ask, but I just can’t do it anymore with my back. And I couldn’t ask one of the boys to do it.” Mrs Miller finishes her sentence with a knowing tone, awaiting Lucy’s understanding.

“Oh, uh, sure. I’d be happy to help.” 

“Lovely.” There was no other answer Lucy could choose to give, it would be rude to refuse, but as Mrs Miller leads the way into the back room with Margeret in tow, Lucy’s heart starts to beat a little faster.

The back door of the shop closes lightly, and it’s just the two of them, and sacks upon sacks of produce.

“Sorry about my mum, she’s always had a bad back from working in the laundry when she was younger.” In contrast to Lucy’s nervousness, Margeret seems relaxed. She places her empty crate on the ground and brushes her hands noisily together.

“Oh, it’s fine.” Lucy insists. She’s not sure if she’s making too much eye contact or too little.

“You don’t have to help me if you don’t want to, I can manage it.” While she seems nice enough, Lucy also gets the impression that Margeret doesn’t mind if people think badly of her. With her hair so short, she must be bold. 

“It’s alright, I don’t mind.” Margeret gives her an amiable smile, and Lucy dares to return it. 

“Okay, let’s get started.” 

The instructions are easy to understand, various items going in crates or bags or boxes. It is difficult work, bending over and up again, and Lucy soon finds out why Mrs Miller has such trouble with it. She got so strong in Narnia, but the weeks of reality have slowly sapped her muscles into softness.

“I like your headband.” Margaret smiles. Lucy feels her cheeks get hot, and hates it, but loves the feeling of Margeret’s smile under her gaze.

“Thanks! It was my birthday on the eighth so Mum sewed it for me.” Margeret reaches up and adjusts the headband as she talks. Lucy bites her tongue inside her mouth.

“Oh, I’m born on the eighth too.” Margeret hastens to speak.

“What month?”

“October.”

Margeret seems satisfied.

“That is sweet of your mum, though.” Margeret sits to sort cabbages, and Lucy sits too.

“Yeah, she is sweet.” Margeret’s eyes seem to lose focus, ruminating on her mother.

She soon launches into curious small talk. Lucy finds it difficult to talk, Margeret’s presence too intimidating, so her answers are hardly lengthy.

“Are you not a big talker? It’s okay if you’re not. I can talk enough for the both of us.” Margeret speaks so kindly Lucy isn’t even embarrassed. She chuckles.

“It’s not that, I just… don’t have a lot to say.” Lucy shrugs. Margeret shakes her head.

“I don’t believe that for a second.” Margeret’s smile dampens. “Do I make you nervous?”

Lucy chuckles, the anxiousness in her laugh as obvious as if she had embroidered it on her sweater.

Margeret breaks into a grin and laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m just joshing.”

Lucy returns her amusement, but her lungs feel on the point of explosion.

Finally the task is done.

“Thanks for your help.” Margeret begins to make her way back to the shop.

“It’s no trouble, Margeret.” Lucy adds her name at the last minute, and it feels awkward in her mouth.

Margeret turns, opening the door for her. “Call me Maggs.”

Lucy smiles. “Okay. Maggs.”

-

Every week on a Thursday afternoon, Lucy walks briskly to the grocery shop to help Maggs for a couple of hours. For the first few weeks, Lucy can’t help but avert her eyes after a second of eye contact with her. But slowly, Lucy adjusts to her appearance, her attitude, and it’s not so shocking anymore. It’s just Maggs.

“I’ve got a couple of siblings. My sister, Nancy, married basically as soon as she was legally able to. Now she has three kids.” Maggs rambles as she inspects potatoes.

“How old is she?” Lucy attempts tactfulness.

“A couple of years older than us.” Lucy must look surprised. “Yeah, we never really connected. You?”

“I’ve got two brothers and a sister.” There’s a pause as Lucy considers how to summarise her relationship with her siblings. “Susan is in America, so is Peter. Edmund is here with me.”

“Oh yes, I’ve seen him. Winks at every girl who passes by.” Maggs grins.

“Does he?” Lucy exclaims. Maggs laughs.

“Oh yes.” Lucy decides to move on from that comment, to ease her discomfort.

“Well, we all get along quite well, these days.” Lucy can see the acknowledgement in Maggs’ eyes of the history that lies heavily behind Lucy’s words. But Maggs doesn’t press. Despite her lack of filter, Lucy notices that Maggs doesn’t bulldoze when the moment calls for it.

Their conversations surpass siblings and ages quickly. Maggs likes to begin their vegetable sorting sessions with a question, which keeps the talking for the entire time. 

One afternoon she asks, “would you ever want to be famous, like one of those big movie stars?” Both of them say no to that one.

Another afternoon, she asks, “what’s the best thing you’ve ever learnt?” That’s a tough one to answer without referring to Narnia, but Lucy stumbles through it. Something about fate, and friendship. Maggs agrees.

“What’s the best dream you’ve ever had?” is followed the subsequent week with “what’s the worst dream you’ve ever had?” That afternoon is a bit of a downer.

“What do you think is going to happen, with the war?” This question, Maggs leaves for towards the end of their shift.

“I don’t know. But... I have to believe that whatever happens will be just.” Lucy is convincing herself as much as Maggs.

“You sound very sure.” Maggs replies, her uncertainty carrying through her voice.

“In my experience, good triumphs over evil.” Lucy is unsure about making statements like that, but it is how she feels, and she trusts Maggs with how she feels. She trusts her more than anyone else.

“In your experience.” Maggs sounds surprised, but seems to accept it. “Well, I admire your optimism. Maybe I should be more like you, Luce.”

Lucy is sure that Maggs’ comment is empty, but her head buzzes at her praise.

Another week, she asks for Lucy’s opinion on women wearing pants - obviously affirmative - and the following week, Maggs is wearing men’s trousers. Mrs Miller apologises when Lucy arrives.

“Maggie is trying to annoy me, but pay her no mind.” Mrs Miller’s joliness is more desperate today.

Lucy says nothing, keeps her head down, until she is alone with Maggs, where she compliments her trousers to no end.

“My mother hates it when I do things like this. She hated it when I cut my hair off too.” Maggs admits. This is one of the few things that, when she speaks about it, her voice gets a little quieter.

“Well, that’s what mothers do, I suppose.” Lucy doesn’t meet her eye, gives her the space to breathe without witness.

“I suppose.” Maggs pauses, long enough for Lucy to assume she has changed the subject. “You know, I really can manage the deliveries by myself. It would take ages but I could.”

Lucy hums in affirmative, and waits for Maggs to make her point.

“I’m pretty sure the only reason she invited you back here is because she thought you could be a good example. So I could be a nice girl too.” Maggs laughs, and so does Lucy, but it’s just a tension release.

After a while, the both of them sitting in lukewarm shame, Lucy forces herself to speak, pushes her mouth into the words she knows she has to say, but her mind loathes to. As easy as her friendship with Maggs has become, she returns to heart-fluttering anxiety as she speaks again.

“Don’t worry, I’m not really a nice girl either.”

Such a statement could go over the head of someone who didn’t also harbour a word they can’t say aloud. But Maggs’ smile comes off to Lucy as very knowing.

-

Their friendship blooms over the months they know each other. While their delivery sorting chores remain the core of their friendship, they start to spend more time outside of the store.

One day, Maggs visits the Scrubb household. She wears a skirt, only to placate her mother and Lucy’s aunt, though Lucy assures her she looks simply lovely nonetheless.

Maggs inspects the house as Lucy leads her upstairs.

“What does one do to keep oneself occupied in such an abode?” Maggs mocks. Lucy turns briefly to tap her shoulder with the back of her hand.

“A great many things. Reading, sewing-” Maggs nods, clearly unconvinced.

“Ah, practical pursuits for the young lady, I see.” Lucy puts on a playful frown as they enter her bedroom.

“Just because you can’t sew…” Maggs opens her mouth in offence.

“I can sew!”

“That does not count as sewing.” Lucy points to a rip in Maggs’ skirt, butchered by uneven stitching.

“Technically, it is sewing.” Lucy shakes her head, and they both laugh. Lucy walks to the wicker chair that sits in the corner of her room and retrieves her latest project, walking back to her bed and gesturing for Maggs to join her.

“Come on, you might learn something.” Maggs, head still shaking, sits beside her.

“So, this is a scene of two ducks in a pond.” Maggs rolls her eyes. Lucy mimes elbowing her.

“Sorry, sorry.” Maggs says. They exchange smiles. Sometimes after spending time with Maggs, Lucy’s cheeks ache from grinning too wide for too long.

“Now, I’m going to demonstrate a stitch, and then you can have a go, okay?”

“Yes, sir.” Lucy does two stitches into the first duck’s tail, and hands the needle to Maggs.

Maggs holds the needle as if it may become sentient and blind her at any second, but manages several decent stitches.

“See! You can do it.” Maggs turns her head, smiling a small, proud smile, and Lucy is suddenly aware of the proximity of their faces.

Lucy’s heart twists. It feels a lot like how she’s heard girls feel about boys, sometimes. She should be scared, but she isn’t. Not really. How could anything be frightening, with Maggs by her side?

-

The two girls sit by the sitting room window. They’re supposed to be reading, but Maggs has long since abandoned her text to stare out the window, or at Lucy. It’s just the two of them, but Lucy’s aunt can be heard tinkering around the kitchen.

“I’ve been to this place before. Like a bar.” Maggs mutters. Lucy lets her book fall open on her lap.

“A bar?” She whispers back, skeptical.

“Yeah. No boys allowed.” If Maggs had winked at the end of her sentence her meaning wouldn’t be more clear. Lucy’s skepticism wanes into curiosity. “Wanna go?”

Lucy hesitates for a second. “Sure.” 

Maggs stares expectantly, still waiting for excitement. 

“Yeah, let’s do it.” Lucy adds, more fervently.

-

Maggs gets a nod from the bouncer. Lucy tries not to let her eyes go too wide as they enter a wide but crowded room. The crowd is unlike any Lucy had experienced before. A woman in a full suit and tails sits with another woman on her lap. There are several so androgynous Lucy couldn’t possible guess if they are a boy or a girl. And she doesn’t care to. It reminds her of standing in front of the last Narnians prior to Caspian’s reign; a family, a community, and it’s full of difference.

The dance floor is packed, but Lucy and Maggs find themselves a spot quickly. Maggs seems to radiate as she moves, the lights making her hair and eyes glitter. Her magnetism reminds Lucy of Lillandil, of how she couldn’t take her eyes of the glowing star.

Maggs places her hands on Lucy’s waist. Though the room is full, Lucy is oblivious to the rest of the room, attention only on Maggs eyes, her lips.

Maggs places her mouth on Lucy’s, and Lucy holds her breath, and the world doesn’t exist for a second. And when she opens her eyes, and the world comes back, Maggs is grinning at her, holding her close, the two of them enveloped in a sea of solidarity.

And the music plays on.

**Author's Note:**

> idk when lucy's canon bday is but i've decided she's a libra
> 
> leave a comment if u want a follow up :)


End file.
